The Pied Piper
by hirondelle-Rae
Summary: Levi contemplates the people he's known and lost, and will again. Rated T for strong language (a little. It's Levi).


**A/N: Just finished watching the** _ **No Regrets**_ **OVA (I'm slow, I know!) and I** _ **needed**_ **some way to process the horror of what happened to Farlan and Isabel. I mean, I knew it was coming. But still…**

 **Also, I thought the OVA moved a bit too quickly from OH MY GOD MY FRIENDS ARE DEAD to OH MY GOD I WILL FOLLOW YOU FOR LIFE. I was like, huh?**

 **Hence…this.**

* * *

"Do you dream?"

The question was strained, soft, buried in the drawn-up knees of the small blond kid sitting by the fire with his arms tightly circled around them and the glint of the fire dancing off his hair. If Levi hadn't been as close as he was it would have been unheard at all.

He cleared his throat.

Armin jumped, and scrambled to his feet. "C-Captain Levi, I'm sorry, I thought you were E–"

"Go to bed." He sat down beside the fire, his expression unchanging.

The blond head bobbed and vanished, or he thought it had, until – "We're no longer the good guys, Captain. It – it keeps me up sometimes –"

Levi slanted him a look. The kid was smart, sure, he had the finest brains of anyone he'd ever met except perhaps for Hanji who was also batshit crazy, but overthinking was going to get him killed in so many ways. Starting with exhaustion. "Go to bed," he said, some dark curling tendril of – responsibility – prompting him to add, "And no thinking."

He felt rather than heard Armin's sigh, and his weary salute. "Yes sir. Good night, Captain."

And then he was alone with the fire, and the clear starry night.

Levi not-quite-sighed, wondering if it was time to get out the little rustling packet under his coat and brew himself a calming cup of tea. _Darjeeling first flush_ , the merchant had said, his nostrils flaring as he handed it over, which Levi took to mean that it was worth more than three months of his salary per gram. But under the coarse conditions of a campfire was not how he had envisaged savouring something so rare, so _civilising_ , he – screw that. He'd get Eren to make some tomorrow at breakfast in the little gilded set they'd been, ahem, "gifted" with recently.

The brat was quite handy that way.

Cleaned decently too, now that he'd had some practice, and – Levi leaned back, breathed – wasn't all that bad when you came right down to it.

Armin was smart as a whip, and a good kid. He had heart, in a way that made Levi wonder whether he'd ever been the same, and that Mikasa – he saw something of himself each time he looked into her eyes, something foreign and burning and silent as steel. _Worth a hundred soldiers_ , they said. He was sure.

He nearly went on – Jean and Sasha, Historia and Connie – but the dark tendrils were back, coiling around his heart, and he stopped on a muttered curse. He'd been here before, with Eld and Oluo and Gunther and Petra, with Farlan and Isabel, even Kenny and – he could barely remember – his mother, down in the Underground – he had let those tendrils take hold, dared to believe in some kind of family, and it had hurt. like. fuck. when they were torn out of his life, again and again and again and again…

Anyone who walked by would have seen only a twitch of his finger, but it spoke volumes of his rage. His terrible, helpless, pathetic rage. _Humanity's Strongest Soldier_ , Hanji had gleefully reported after some expedition or another. Humanity's finest. And still there was nothing he could do to _stop_ it, stop all of the _dying_ , and until something happened, he didn't know what, he would just have to lead more and more people to their fucking deaths, caring about them all the fucking way because he couldn't help himself.

This shit was _screwed_ _up_.

Levi lifted his head, stared at the implacable stars overhead. What was it Farlan – or was it Isabel – had said, one of those precious few nights they had all three been on the surface? The nights were just as dark up here, but you knew there was no ceiling. They were going to step outside together, all three of them, the way they'd promised.

Those fools. A chill breeze started up, and Levi shifted closer to the fire. Those beautiful, damnable fools.

Still, he had to hand it to Erwin – he'd made their dreams come true. They had seen sunshine, belonged on the surface as part of the Survey Corps, seen the sky and the world beyond the walls. And even if it had only lasted for a while – a very, very short while – it was what Farlan and Isabel would have wanted, rather than living the rest of their lives sick underground.

He believed that. He had to. Just as he believed that the Commander would someday make his dream – _their_ dream – come true: the dream of a world without titans. He couldn't see it himself, had no idea what they were going to have to do to get there, but the man saw things he couldn't even begin to imagine.

Someday the world would be free of titans, and then?

 _And then, you bloodless bastard,_ thought Levi almost fondly, _I might just kill you myself._

* * *

The chill breeze had turned to rain, and Levi shivered lightly as he waited for the next soldier to relieve him of his duties. It wasn't the cold so much as the shit mood he was in, he knew, haunted by the souls of all the people he'd known and led a merry dance to death's door like the fucking pied piper. Even the fire offered no solace; in its crackle he heard the sharpness of Farlan's laughter, in its glow he felt the warmth of Isabel's smile.

"Captain Levi."

Jean, sombre, still trying to rub the last of the sleep out of his eyes and wrap his cloak more tightly around himself.

"About time." Levi gave him a glare that had little to do with his punctuality, started for his own clean and cosy bed, then turned back again. "How's Armin?"

"Armin, sir?" Jean blinked. "Sleeping, I suppose. He was snoring like a rock – I mean a – snoring thing –"

Levi nodded once, and turned on his heel. Back in the room his squad had set up earlier for him with their usual tomfoolery – he had glimpsed Eren trying to wrestle Connie into _licking_ the floor – his bed was waiting. He climbed into it, composed his limbs, and waited to fall, sliding into blackness.

 _Do you dream, indeed._

He didn't dream.

He was profoundly grateful.


End file.
